I Have Borderline Personality Disorder, And I Am Not Crazy

I have struggled with borderline personality disorder and depression for much of my life. The past two years in particular, I was severely ill with treatment resistant depression. Add in the particulars of having borderline personality disorder (BPD) and you get someone who cannot think clearly and believes she is unworthy of the blessings she has been given.

Those with borderline personality disorder are often misunderstood. As a social worker, while reading through an adolescent’s intake forms and seeing the diagnosis, I was guilty of saying out loud to my colleagues, “Oh no, this one is going to be manipulative! Another borderline!” While that was completely inappropriate of me, it went along with the stigma of having this diagnosis. While this was 16 years ago, I still see the stigma today and only recently started to be open about my own BPD.

I went through years of denial in my 20s even while different doctors diagnosed me with BPD. I would challenge them or would keep it to myself and convince myself they did not know what they were doing and were mistaken. I wasn’t manipulative or moody or engaging in self-harm, except I was. I simply could not own the fact that my behaviors did fall into this category or diagnosis. I believed people with BPD were crazy and I wasn’t crazy! I was just a regular 20-something trying to build a life for myself.